This Chernobyl Photography Series Shows a Lasting Effect

Taking on an issue of humongous magnitude, and keeping its legacy alive 28 years later, Gerd Ludwig’s Chernobyl photography series is haunting and poignant.

Showing viewers the devastation in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion (which released radioactive particles over much of the western USSR and Europe,) photographer Gerd Ludwig went to Chernobyl several times to document the harrowing impact of this disaster.

"At first Ukrainian officials discouraged them (elderly citizens that chose to stay in their homes), branding them as illegal residents, but soon turned a blind eye, realizing that they preferred to die on their own contaminated soil instead of a broken heart in anonymous city suburbs," says Ludwig.